And you thought the discourse on Twitter was vitriolic.
Future third President Thomas Jefferson despised outspoken Founding Father Alexander Hamilton so much that in a 1793 letter to the future fourth President, James Madison, Jefferson egged him on: “For God’s sake, dear sir, take up your pen, select the most striking heresies and cut him to pieces in the face of the public.”
The root cause of their beef? Hamilton, a Revolutionary War hero and the country’s first Secretary of the Treasury, was a Federalist and, like George Washington and John Adams, believed a strong federal government was better than letting the individual states have the last say. Other constitutional issues they argued about involved establishing a standing army and the creation of a federal banking system.
Just like with Jefferson and Madison, Hamilton managed to land himself on Adams’ list of political foes, although they were in the same political party. Hamilton and Adams clashed over foreign policy, and a letter published by Hamilton in 1800 openly questioned Adams’ competence to be President. Adams fired back in a letter to Benjamin Rush that Hamilton was a “bastard brat of a Scottish peddler.”
Some things in America never change.
Later in life, Jefferson would have a change of heart (Hamilton reluctantly voted for him in 1800 to be President) and displayed a bust of Hamilton at his Virginia home, Monticello.
The aforementioned letters, and a Hamilton bust from the collection at Winterthur that’s similar to the one at Monticello, are just two of the artifacts in the National Constitution Center’s newest exhibit in its Annenberg Gallery – “Hamilton: The Constitutional Clashes That Shaped a Nation.”
It’s exactly what you need to see before the “Hamilton” hip-hop musical makes a run in Philly next year. “We decided we should tap into this and do what we do best, tell the story through a Constitutional lens,” said Elena Popchock, the center’s exhibition developer.
You can walk the paces Hamilton and Vice-President Aaron Burr took during their infamous 1804 duel, and see how close they stood to each other when Burr shot and mortally wounded Hamilton. The exhibit has hand-written regulations for the duel, as well as replicas of the pistols.
One of many interesting things you’ll learn from the Hamilton exhibit is that the duel took place in Weehawken, N.J., where dueling was illegal, yet that law wasn’t enforced. “This was so critical for them that they were willing to die for it,” Popchock said of the dramatic war of words that drove the two men to a showdown to defend their honor.
Although Hamilton’s reputation took a hit when word got out that he had an affair with a married Philadelphia woman named Maria Reynolds (One of Hamilton’s responses was dropping the bombshell that Thomas Jefferson had an intimate relationship with his slave, Sally Hemings), his legacy includes championing American manufacturing and the formation of the U.S. Coast Guard and Customs Service, a funding system for public debt and the first national tax revenues. His image has been on the front of the $10 bill since 1929 (Before Abe Lincoln, he was on the $5 bill).
Jeffrey Rosen, President and CEO of the National Constitution Center, called Hamilton “the father of modern government.”
Additional artifact highlights include:
*A 1788 first-edition copy of “The Federalist.” The Federalist Papers spelled out how the U.S. Constitution should be interpreted.
*A lock of Hamilton’s hair cut by his wife, Eliza, on the day that he died.
*An 1800s inkwell that belonged to Thomas Jefferson.
*A pocket watch that belonged to John Adams.
*James Madison’s personalized wine bottle seal from 1808-1836.
*”The Reynolds Pamphlet,” Hamilton’s 95-page refutation of public corruption charges, in which he admitted to adultery.
*Hamilton’s portable writing desk from the late 1700s.
*1957 postage stamps issued to celebrate the bicentennial of Hamilton’s birth.
*A “Hamilton” Broadway playbill.
To continue the exhibit experience, visitors can “meet” Hamilton and Madison in the National Constitution Center’s Signers’ Hall, which features life-size bronze statues of the Founding Fathers.
